Problems with Dschenghis Khan on Prince level

[Todelotti]

I'm a relatively new player of Civ4. After playing around on the low difficulty levels without any real strategy I began to struggle on Noble level and watched that long video series on Youtube about playing as Willem van Oranje ("Sulla" is the author of that series). I learned a lot, tried it as Willem myself on Noble level and was very successful with the suggested strategy.

Now I started a new game on Prince level with random civ and leader selection, got Dschenghis Khan/Mongolia and nothing works anymore like in the game before. Here are some infos about game setting and my current situation (turn 156, early medieval era):

• Pangaea map with standard size, standard game speed, Prince level
• As said, I am Dschenghis Khan
• I'm sitting on a kind of sub continent and I'm cut off from the big part of the continent by another civ, namely Perikles who is my only neighbour. The relationship with him is "friendly" (we share the same religion and have open borders).
• The land on this sub continent isn't that great, partially tundra, not so many food resources, room for 4 cities (see attached screenshot 1).
• No access to stone or marble and I haven't built any wonders yet.
• My two main cities are on health limit and I don't see a way to improve health at the moment (nobody is trading goods that deliver health and aquaeduct, etc. is already built)
• While exploring with a chariot on the bigger part of the continent I conquered a barbarian city with good resources and more room and resources around, so I was hoping I could expand in that area. Problem is, the area is far away from my home cities. The maintenance costs for this new city dropped my research speed significantly, so that I'm now very behind at least 3 of the other civs.
• Unfortunately while I was developing that new conquered city the surrounding land has been quickly occupied by another civ, Korea, which is currently the clear leader in tech and score (see attached screenshot 2).
• I will get 2 great scientists within the next 2 turns.

What did I wrong and how can I still save the game (if it's possible at all)? Personally I see the following options:

• Go to war against Perikles, despite the fact that he is "friendly" (as the only leader, most others are "cautious"), to expand from my home sub continent towards the main continent.
• Go to war against Wang Kon to expand the land around my new conquered city. However Wang Kon is by far the strongest in power of all the AI civs. On the other hand his new cities around my new conquered city are still quite weak. I don't know how fast he could send reinforcements from his stronger cities if I would attack one of his weak cities.
• Look for new unoccupied land. There is still a large area in the north with some luxary resources, but the food resources don't look convincing.
• Don't expand at all and play on with 5 cities?

I mean, as Khan I am aggressive/imperialistic. Don't I have to leverage those traits urgently? And can I wait longer because the Mongolian Unique Unit/Unique Building are an improved Horse Archer and an improved Stable? The game is approaching the era of Knights (Wang Kon might have them already, if not yet, then certainly very soon) and I'm wondering if I have any chance after that era where my UU/UB probably don't mean so much anymore.

Thanks for any tips in advance!

 

[schadenfreude]

Try and get Pericles into a war, then back stab him after a half dozen turns. Build another junk city in your Southeastern corner. Once you have a granary and lighthouse you can have it build wealth. Plop down a city on the forest three squares North of Turfan (?). It isn't great, but beggars can't be choosers. Get that courthouse built in your distant city. Build more cottages.

And above all, use your UU horse archers. Build/whip (you generally want to whip when it will cost you 2 population) about 20 and you should be able to take out Greece. Just do it before Greece gets longbows. You will lose plenty to spearmen, but just keep pumping them out until you have capitulated or overrun the Greeks.

 

[Hollow Bow]

I can't remember when I have played prince level, so ...

FIRST OFF you can upload your savegame through the attachement tool in the post interface, this will greatly help those that are interested in helping you out, since they will be able to load the game themselves and analyze your situation.

From just looking at the screens though:

_ have a look at what your 'friend' has in terms of units and their techlevel. Look at the military techs (in thetechadvisor screen) he can research and deduce from this the ones he has already in his posession.

_ Keshiks can handle a spearmen here and there, and beat all other classical units besides war elephants, if you have enough of them you can even take on longbows.
Anything better than that and the following advice is not gonna be very relevant.

_ If his military is at the desired techlevel, you can get into the 'slavery' civic and use the 'rush production' feature that allows you to spend population points + happiness level to quickly produce a large number of keshiks; this will allow you to take all your 'friends' land


Without a savegame it 's hard to get an idea on what to give as advice though. I just don't know what the AI is up to at 900 ad on prince. On immortal using keshiks without support in this era would basically amount to a very entertaining way of comitting suicide .

 

[Todelotti]

Thanks for the advice so far! I have started to build the 2 recommended additional cities and more Keshiks. The current status is:

_ Pericles already has longbows (around 2 to 4 per city) and an occasional single Maceman and/or Pikeman per city
_ The foreign advisor says that Pericles "can" research Guilds (don't know if that could also mean that he's doing it already)
_ I can build Maces and Catapults and I'm researching Guilds right now (around 8 turns to go)
_ I don't know how I could get Pericles into a war with another civ. He refuses to declare war on anyone ("can't betray our close friends" or "we would have nothing to gain").
_ I have 15 Keshiks right now and I'm building more.
_ I'm already in Slavery civic since quite a time and whip the stuff out as soon as I can.
_ I've just used a great scientist to build an Academy in my capital (don't know if that was the right decision)

Shouldn't I build catapults and maces as well before I attack? And what about my defense? I only have outdated warriors and archers in my cities, no longbows, etc.

 

[Hollow Bow]

Keshiks will die horribly vs pikemen and macemen. Best you stop producing them for now

Main part of the reason why you are struggling is because of mistakes / bad settles you have made at the start of the game. Considering the difficulty level it is probably easy to salvage the situation, but rather than bruteforcing it I have a different suggestion for you :

Most people will not give you help in this thread because it's already 920AD and from the screenshots we can see that it's not detailed advice you need on this specific situation, but rather the basics

Put this game aside for now, and participate in http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

You can download a prince level save. I suggest you try asking for how to proceed in that thread and try to learn from the choices made by the players there, and try to apply them to your difficulty level.

Also I recommend this thread : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

 

[elitetroops]

Hollow Bow gives solid advice. The current game is already messed up quite badly and while it's certainly still winnable, that would require some really strong playing and from the screenshots we can see you still need to work on the basics. The early game is most important, what you do in the first 100 turns matter the most. This late it is hard to fix early game mistakes. Not sure which game HB wanted you to participate in, as he posted the link to Sisiutil's strategy guild twice... But may I suggest one of the 2 latest Noble's Club games. Either Boudica or Louis.

Keshiks are great, but the attack should have taken place 2000 years earlier. If you did that, and built nothing but Keshik's since then, you would already have won a conquest victory.

 

[schadenfreude]

Ugh, I didn't know you were that far along in the game. If it were me I would probably start again. If I counted every game I abandoned, my winning percentage would hover around 10%; but once a particular game stops being fun, I will start another.

I have never won as Ghengis. I have successfully used a keshik rush, but then my economy imploded. You inspired me to try him again. I grabbed about 7 cities from Washington and burnt a couple of others. I just barely reached feudalism in time to capitulate him. I had to attempt to build a bunch of wonders for fail gold. To my surprise, I was able to build the pyramids, the Mausoleum of Mausolus, the Great Library and The Parthenon. Now Monty is attacking although we are in the same religion.

 

[Todelotti]

Thanks for all the tips! I have stopped that game now and restarted as Ghengis again on one difficulty lower (Noble) and I'm reading the guide that Hollow Bow linked.

Just a question about this new game (see attached screenshot), only at turn 18 right now: I have Marble on an adjacent tile. Does it make sense to research Mining->Masonry very early (I mean before Bronze Working, maybe even before Animal Husbandry and Pottery) in order to get access to it and perhaps run for an early wonder? I have decided not to do so and research Animal Husbandry first to find the Horse resources as soon as possible. But I'm not sure if that was the right decision.

 

[schadenfreude]

I would build some marble wonders (Great Library in your capital and maybe one or two others), but not just yet. Get farming first, then mining, then either bronze working, pottery (Genghis is a poor at tech so you will probably need some cottages), or animal husbandry (you will need horses!). If you get four or so cities, with either axes or chariots for defense and about 6-7 workers, you should be set to then decide whether you want to expand further, attack, build wonders or some combination therein.

Nice looking capital with plenty of food!

 

[elitetroops]

Masonry for marble this early is hardly ever worth it. Even if you go for a very fast oracle, the only early marble wonder worth building, it is usually faster to skip masonry and not waste 8 worker turns on quarry+road.

I'd go for either Bronze Working or pottery after agriculture. You should cottage those floodplains asap. I noticed in your last game you had farmed all the floodplains, cottages are usually better. Especially in your capital.

I'd delay Animal Husbandry until either bronze working or pottery is researched. Otherwise your worker has nothing to do for a while after building the farms. You don't need AH until you are about to settle the next city anyway.

 

[Todelotti]

Yes, the land around looks much better this time!

Until now I have 1 worker, 1 warrior and 2 scouts and I'm building a settler at the moment. The wheat and the corn tile is improved and one cottage is built. The worker is building a road for the corn tile and I'm planning to send him to the marble tile after that.

I'm wondering now where to place my second city (see attached screenshot with my candidates X1 to X4):

• X1 would have the corn, the horses and the stone in reach and is on a river
• X2 would have great food supply (pig, rice, deer) and it's on the coast
• X3 would have rice, spices and horses and is on a river
• X4 has the cow and the deer and is on a river

I definitely would want to have a city on X2, but I think I can safely postpone this as city 3 or 4 because there is no other civ close to this spot.

X4 could work as a city to stop expanding De Gaulle to close into my direction. Not sure if that matters.

At the moment I'd prefer X1 to get the stone and the horses and hopefully the corn and that flood plain tile is good enough as food supply to get the city running.

Or do you see a better spot for the second city?

 

[elitetroops]

I'm sorry to say, but they are all bad... First rule of settling: Always settle with food in first ring! (Okay, make that "whenever possible", it's not always possible, but most of the time it is.) This means settle next to a food resource. A city needs food to be able to do anything at all and it takes forever to get a border pop. This rules out all but X2. But X2 is too far away for a 2nd city, actually they all are... And btw. don't settle on floodplains. They are one of the best tiles to work and you ruin them by building a city there.

After settling next to food, improve the food resources immediately. You should have a worker ready to start doing this on the same turn you settle.

The map seems a bit problematic as it doesn't have any really good spots for a 2nd city... I'd consider 2N of marble. You can farm the floodplain NW of marble and it can help the capital grow cottages. If you cottage the floodplain north of capital, the new city can work that immediately upon settling, in case capital isn't big enough to work it. Settling on plains hills is very good as you get an extra hammer in the city tile. That's actually the only thing plains hills are really good for...

1E if X1 is a very good spot, just not yet for your 2nd city.

Where is your worker btw? Is it roading the corn? You don't need a road there in a very long time. It should be building more cottages.

 

[reddishrecue]

Im wondering why you didn't place your city on top of marble. Placing a city on top of marble gives you an extra hammer in the start if you didn't know and if you did, why didn't you place on top of marble? Are you saving the marble for a later worker and then get it worked by the city as soon as the quarry is built?

 

[Seraiel]

You'll get the Horses south of your capital once the city pops borders again, which will be quite fast because it's the capital having the Palace. Nn to get the other Horses with X1. Better settle 1E of X1, so you have the Corn in the 1st ring, like elitetroops already wrote.

If your capital is size 3 already (can't see on screen) , continue with the next Settler directly after the 1st, build your 2nd Worker in Corn city. Found your 2nd city 1E of X4. Farm the Floodplains to have some early Food, you probably can do that with the Worker from the capital, because your capital should have enough improved tiles then.

3rd city should go 1 NW of Cows, to complete you blocking the land. Very nice city with a Floodplains in the 2nd ring.

4th city 1 SE of X2, because settling on the Plains-Hill will give you an extra . Also, no city needs tripple Food, better to split it up for another city.

5th and 6th city then to catch the Rice resources, but don't settle the one with the Rice in the Jungle before you have Ironworking.

If you play slowly and play a different game in between, you'll get great advice for this game, and you'll learn a lot.

 

[schadenfreude]

Yes, the land around looks much better this time!

Until now I have 1 worker, 1 warrior and 2 scouts and I'm building a settler at the moment. The wheat and the corn tile is improved and one cottage is built. The worker is building a road for the corn tile and I'm planning to send him to the marble tile after that.

I'm wondering now where to place my second city (see attached screenshot with my candidates X1 to X4):

• X1 would have the corn, the horses and the stone in reach and is on a river
• X2 would have great food supply (pig, rice, deer) and it's on the coast
• X3 would have rice, spices and horses and is on a river
• X4 has the cow and the deer and is on a river

I definitely would want to have a city on X2, but I think I can safely postpone this as city 3 or 4 because there is no other civ close to this spot.

X4 could work as a city to stop expanding De Gaulle to close into my direction. Not sure if that matters.

At the moment I'd prefer X1 to get the stone and the horses and hopefully the corn and that flood plain tile is good enough as food supply to get the city running.

Or do you see a better spot for the second city?

I like your choice for X-1. Since this is noble, send a settler with a worker, quarry and hook up the stone to X-1, and chop a quick stone wonder (preferably Stonehedge). Once it is connected to the stone it should take less than 10 turns. It is the quickest way to get that city to cultural domination of the area. The problem is that this city is far away from your capital. You might even be able to build the Pyramids there while your capital provides settlers, workers, and troops.

My X-2 would be toward France, perhaps on the green hill north of the cows. It will be an excellent production city for chopping out troops. Third city would either be just north of your capital or placed to wall off some more territory further off (depends on your economy and if anyone is closing in on your land).

With regard to cottaging your capital, I might farm the floodplains and cottage the riverside grasslands. That will allow you to whip and regrow back faster. When you need to slow or stop growth you can work the cottages.

 

[Seraiel]

With regard to cottaging your capital, I might farm the floodplains and cottage the riverside grasslands. That will allow you to whip and regrow back faster. When you need to slow or stop growth you can work the cottages.

This is unfortunately very bad advice, as the capital is already at +12 . Capitals also run Bureacracy, so Cottages get massively multiplied with an Academy on top. Plz cottage your capitals, you'll do much better.

 

[schadenfreude]

This is unfortunately very bad advice, as the capital is already at +12 . Capitals also run Bureacracy, so Cottages get massively multiplied with an Academy on top. Plz cottage your capitals, you'll do much better.

He can cottage PLENTY of green riverside tiles. When his happy cap jumps to 14 when he builds the Pyramids it will take him forever to grow his capital into all his useful tiles if he doesn't take advantage of all his food.

 

[elitetroops]

He can cottage PLENTY of green riverside tiles. When his happy cap jumps to 14 when he builds the Pyramids it will take him forever to grow his capital into all his useful tiles if he doesn't take advantage of all his food.

Seraiel is right. The floodplains should definitely be cottaged. And the green tiles should be cottaged. He'll grow fast enough. A helper city can be settled somewhere to work the cottages capital cannot yet work. Four green riverside tiles for cottaging is not "plenty". A decent mid-late game bureau cap should be working at least 10 towns, a good one is working 15 towns. By cottaging all the green tiles and the floodplains he gets 10, which qualifies as decent.

 

[elitetroops]

When you need to slow or stop growth you can work the cottages.

This is also bad. Cottages should be worked every turn, or they won't develop. The capital isn't whipped as frequently as other cities because of this. You need it big enough to work as many cottages as possible.

 

[schadenfreude]

This is also bad. Cottages should be worked every turn, or they won't develop. The capital isn't whipped as frequently as other cities because of this. You need it big enough to work as many cottages as possible.

Well, I hate having to farm over cottages when I don't have enough food to run scientists and still build things. And his capital has so much food he should be whipping a lot to get himself set up. In any case, he needs to build some mines.